Must-see TV for NYC and how to deal with the coming cop cameras

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has lost the confidence of his constituents and imperiled his mayoralty because his administration long

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has lost the confidence of his constituents and imperiled his mayoralty because his administration long refused to release the video of a fatal police shooting.

The events captured on the video show that a white Chicago cop needlessly fired, and kept firing, at 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was black. Only because a judge ordered the video released did a prosecutor hurriedly charge the officer with murder.

The lesson for New York and all of America is that, in an era of ubiquitous video recording, the public has hurtled toward demanding to see and independently judge police conduct.

As one lawyer representing Chicago said in ending long opposition to releasing a video, "the city recognizes, however, we're in a new world."

The NYPD is there, as well.

Commissioner Bill Bratton has ordered the purchase of 5,000 body cameras, and the monitor assigned to oversee the department is wrestling with complex issues surrounding their introduction.

Questions include when officers would start and stop recording, how privacy of innocent individuals would be protected, whether videos could be used as investigative tools, and, importantly, when the videos would be publicly released.

Rahm goes to the video, belatedly. (Paul Beaty/AP)

Bratton has expressed opposition to making the videos available under the freedom of information law. The NYPD has responded to one request for recordings made in a test of body cameras by asking for $36,000 reimbursement.

With the department likely to get shipment of thousands of cameras next year, now is the time for Mayor de Blasio and Bratton to start setting a policy on public access to videos. Their thinking should cover both those recorded by cops and those recorded by private security cameras.